Sharpshooters can always stage a miracle of a hundred steps through Yang and a one-shot victory or defeat on the battlefield. In the movie "Chosin Lake", the Seventh Company also has a sharpshooter who walks through Yang in a hundred steps - Pinghe. At every critical moment in the battle, Pinghe can play a key role, even a one-shot victory or defeat, and what is even more amazing is that Pinghe uses not only a rifle but also a light machine gun at the same time. This makes the audience who understands modern sniper tactics misunderstand, shouldn't snipers use sniper rifles? Why would Pinghe be a two-gun general?
Before answering these questions, we must first understand the concepts of sharpshooter and sniper. Sharpshooter and sniper are two synonyms, but they are not equal. According to the definition of the Western army, the sniper in the modern sense refers to a sniper who has received professional sniper training and has a fixed establishment, using a special sniper rifle. According to the tradition of the people's army, sharpshooters refer to ordinary riflemen with better marksmanship, who have never participated in sniper training, nor have fixed and special sniper rifles, and can even be machine gunners and submachine gunners.
Therefore, there were no snipers in the modern sense in the formation of the Volunteer Army, and it was even less likely to be equipped with sniper rifles with scopes in large quantities. However, as a people's army born from the flames of war and relying on advanced tactical ideas to repeatedly defeat the strong with the weak, it also attaches great importance to precision shooting and consciously cultivates its own sharpshooters. In the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the sharpshooters of the volunteer army repeatedly accomplished miraculous feats and produced a large number of combat heroes. Among them, the sharpshooter with the most fame and the most achievements is none other than Zhang Taofang.
On the Korean battlefield in 1952, the warring sides entered into a stale positional battle. In order to eliminate the enemy in large numbers, the volunteer army launched the "cold gun and cold gun campaign", which continuously eliminated the enemy's living forces through high-density and low-intensity precision shooting. Zhang Taofang is a famous sharpshooter who emerged during this period.
■ Zhang Taofang, armed with a Mosin Nagant 1944 rifle
Zhang Taofang, a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, joined the army in March 1951 and went to the Korean battlefield in September 1952. Zhang Taofang had never received systematic sniper training before entering the war, and her little shooting experience came entirely from the only 2 months of recruit shooting training after enlistment. Some people say that snipers are fed with bullets one round at a time, but before the founding of the people's army was long limited by the lack of ammunition, whether it was ordinary soldiers or sharpshooters did not have too many bullets for live-fire training, so the sharpshooters born at that time relied more on their superior shooting talent and hard work.
Zhang Taofang was born with the basic conditions to be a sharpshooter. First of all, he is farsighted, and he can clearly see the target at a distance of 400 meters, which can make up for the lack of a scope to the greatest extent. Secondly, his sense of distance and direction is particularly good, without a telescope or laser rangefinder can accurately judge the distance from the target, choose the appropriate scale differentiation. Finally, he has the psychological quality of composure and calmness.
When many media introduce Zhang Taofang, they always say that he is a natural sharpshooter, and recruits shine as soon as they go to the battlefield. But in fact, Zhang Taofang is not only talented, but also inseparable from hard training. In order to practice aiming according to the gun, he practiced with a heavy rifle for 1 hour without moving, and also made more than a dozen pounds of sandbags hanging on his arm to practice stability. After a long period of hard training, Zhang Taofang's body has formed a muscle memory, and there is no need to aim at the medium and close targets, and the gun is raised. Some people may feel this mysterious. For example, in the 1964 all-army competition, sharpshooter Song Shizhe once hit 40 targets with a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle in 40 seconds, 3 times in 40 seconds, there was no time to aim, all relying on muscle memory.
The rifle used by Zhang Taofang during the new recruit period was the Japanese Type 38 rifle commonly known as the "Three Eight Big Cover", which used a 6.5×50mm Yusaka rifle cartridge with a smaller recoil, which was more suitable for thinner soldiers in East Asia. However, after entering the DPRK, Zhang Taofang's unit was equipped with Soviet weapons and equipment as a whole, and his rifle was also replaced by the Mosin Nagant 1944 rifle commonly known as the "Water Lianzhu" Soviet-made Mosin Nagant. This rifle fires 7.62×54mmR rifle bullets, not only the recoil is larger than the three or eight large covers, but also because it is a rifle, its barrel is shorter than the standard type, and the accuracy is also reduced. When using Mosin Nagant live ammunition for the first time, Zhang Taofang missed the target for three consecutive shots. But through hard training, he quickly mastered the shooting essentials of Mosin Nagan and actively asked his superiors for battle.
Zhang Taofang's unit was the 8th Company of the 3rd Battalion, 214th Regiment, 72nd Division of the 24th Army of the Volunteer Army, and was ordered to garrison The 597.9 Heights. After about 1 month of adaptation and accumulation of experience, Zhang Taofang killed 7 enemies with 9 bullets to overwhelm many veterans of the company and became the first-class shooter of the company. Zhang Taofang, who found the feeling, was out of control, and in more than a month, he killed 71 enemies with 247 bullets, and his deeds were known to everyone within the 24th Army through the 24th Army newspaper "FireWire".
The commander of the 24th Army at the time was Pi Dingjun, a tiger general who was hand-picked by Chairman Mao as "Pi Yougong, Less Jin Zhong". Pi Dingjun, who had experienced hundreds of battles, had no first reaction to the legendary record reported by the 72nd Division- how could a recruit egg who had only been on the battlefield for 2 months destroy so many enemies with so few bullets. Pi Dingjun, who was strict in governing the army, sent his combat staff officers to the 597.9 highland to investigate the spot, saying that Zhang Taofang's jin two. Before the staff officer left, Pi Dingjun took out the cotton shoes he was reluctant to wear and handed them to the staff officers, instructing him to "Reward Zhang Taofang with this pair of cotton shoes if the battle results are true."
After the operations staff officer rushed to the 597.9 heights to see Zhang Taofang, he infiltrated the forward position with him and supervised the battle at his side. The bold and careful Zhang Taofang was not affected by the audience around her at all, and as always, she observed calmly and chose the best shooting time. Not only did 3 shots kill 3 enemies in a row, but also staged a wonderful duel with enemy snipers. After personally witnessing Zhang Taofang's godlike marksmanship and brave and tenacious fighting spirit, the combat staff officer gathered all the officers and men of the 8th Company and rewarded Zhang Taofang with cotton shoes in public.
■ Zhang Taofang demonstrated using the Mosin Nagant 1944 rifle
Zhang Taofang's use of Mosin Nagan is not known for its precision, neither equipped with a scope, nor has it been modified in any way, it is such a simple rifle, in Zhang Taofang's hands immediately turned decay into magic, repeatedly made military achievements.
■ Zhang Taofang's rifle, which is treasured in the Beijing Military Museum
After the combat staff officer returned to the military headquarters, he truthfully reported Zhang Taofang's performance to Pi Dingjun. Pi Dingjun is full of curiosity and expectation for the legendary sharpshooter under his command, not only curious about Zhang Taofang's shooting talent, but also looking forward to his ability to create greater results. Zhang Taofang, who was praised by the commander, did not live up to the expectations of the chiefs and comrades, and continued to work hard in the days that followed, annihilating 214 enemy soldiers with 442 rounds of bullets. On December 7, 1953, he was awarded the "Second Class Combat Hero" by the Headquarters of the Volunteer Army.
In the entire War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, many other sharpshooters emerged in the volunteer army, such as Zou Xixiang, the sharpshooter who killed 203 enemy 203 people with 206 bullets in the Battle of Shangganling, Lu Changqing, a comrade-in-arms sharpshooter who killed 178 enemy personnel, and Huang Xinghai, a sharpshooter who killed more than 100 enemy comrades. There were also the sharp gunners Tang Zhanghong and Gao Jinwen, who were famous for fighting "cold artillery"--Tang Zhanghong created a good record of consuming 79 shells in 65 days and annihilating 101 enemy personnel in the Battle of Shangganling; Gao Jinwen commanded the mortar company to fight fiercely for 43 days in the Battle of Shangganling, only sacrificing 3 people, annihilating more than 800 US-ROK troops, becoming a unit that had the longest insistence, the largest number of enemy annihilation, the smallest casualties, and the largest number of combat heroes in the Shangganling Campaign. Master".
Back in the movie "Chosin Lake", the rifle used by Pinghe is an ordinary three-eight large cover, and there is no scope added. This shows that the filmmakers have a very good understanding of sharpshooters, and did not blindly follow the trend and equipped Pinghe with a sniper rifle equipped with scopes.
■ Ping River with his three-eight large cover
It should be known that the sharpshooters in the volunteer army are not fixed, and what kind of weapons are used will vary according to the different tasks given by the superiors. As a veteran, Pinghe was clearly familiar with all the weapons and equipment in the company. For example, in the old movie "Heroes and Children", when Wang Cheng was the only one left on the battlefield, he used a variety of firearms, which is a veteran who has experienced hundreds of battles. Zhang Taofang also used many firearms in combat. According to the recollections of his comrades-in-arms, he used the American M1 Garand rifle, commonly known as the "Big Eight".
Let's take a look at why Pinghe chose a light machine gun? This question can first be answered from Zhang Taofang. Zhang Taofang was once suppressed by U.S. military machine guns in a duel with U.S. snipers. This shows that at that time, snipers were not limited to sniper rifles, as long as they could complete the task, they would also use other firearms when conditions permitted. As the sharpshooter of the Seventh Company, Pinghe will not stick to a rifle, but will choose the most suitable firearm according to the task assigned by the company commander. Hirakawa's machine gun is a Japanese Type 99 light machine gun. On the basis of absorbing the advantages of the Czech-style light machine gun equipped by the Chinese army and the light machine gun such as the crooked handle and the Type 96 of the country, the Type 99 light machine gun can be described as the most successful product of the Japanese light machine gun. Not only was the failure rate significantly lower than that of the crooked handle, but the bullet was also upgraded from the 6.5×50mm Yusaka rifle cartridge with insufficient long-range power to the Type 99 7.7x58mm rifle cartridge. Due to the good accuracy of the Type 99 light machine gun at long range, the Japanese army that cut the door also installed a 2.5 times magnification sight for it for the first time. In this way, it is also reasonable for Pinghe to use a Type 99 machine gun for long-range suppression. By today's standards, the Type 99 machine gun is similar to an automatic rifle with a scope added and a long barrel replaced by a precision shooter rifle, and its main role is to suppress fire from a long distance with precision.
■Type 99 machine gun with additional scope